Wed, Aug 21 2019, 8:16 AM
Residential construction has been famously slow for several years and some new analysis of Census data by the National Association of Home Builders (N...
Wed, Aug 21 2019, 8:11 AM
The volume of mortgage applications continued to be shored up by refinancing during the week ended August 16, but overall activity was down. The Mortg...
Tue, Aug 20 2019, 5:41 PM
Bonds were breathing easy by the time the domestic session got underway. Before that, they kicked off the overnight session in lower yield territory....
Tue, Aug 20 2019, 5:13 PM
Mortgage rates held steady today, for the most part. If there was a leaning, it was toward slightly lower rates, but not by a wide enough margin to be...
Tue, Aug 20 2019, 2:30 PM
Monday's edition of the Federal Register featured a proposed rule that, depending on your viewpoint, would amend the Department of Housing and Urban D...
Tue, Aug 20 2019, 8:59 AM
In the day just passed, we considered a rather melodramatic question ("is it over?"), which refers to the general strength in the bond market seen in ...
Tue, Aug 20 2019, 8:45 AM
Why is a 43% DTI, a line many view as “drawn in the sand,” so critical to the ability of a borrower to repay a loan? What about reserves or utility bi...
Mon, Aug 19 2019, 5:59 PM
There haven't been many market moving headlines over the past 2 days with the exception of Germany removing the veil of secrecy from its fiscal stim...
Mon, Aug 19 2019, 4:52 PM
Mortgage rates mostly held steady today , despite a move higher in broader interest rate indicators like the 10yr Treasury yield. Treasuries and mortg...
Mon, Aug 19 2019, 12:09 PM
Fannie Mae used a fair number of trade-offs in while coming up with its revised outlook for the real gross domestic product (GDP) this year. The compa...
Mon, Aug 19 2019, 9:24 AM
In the week just passed, bonds rallied to new long-term low yields before bouncing on Friday. Hong Kong protests over the weekend kicked things off o...
Mon, Aug 19 2019, 9:10 AM
Builders can’t complain too much about material prices anymore. Building materials prices rose only 0.7% in July, and are down overall year-over-year....
Fri, Aug 16 2019, 7:17 PM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) moved one point higher this month. However, at 66, NAHB's meas...
Fri, Aug 16 2019, 7:15 PM
New home purchases are expected to be significantly higher in July according to data released by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Its monthly B...
Fri, Aug 16 2019, 4:54 PM
Perhaps more than any other day in the past few weeks, today stood as an example of the mortgage market's ability to put up a fight when the time is...
Fri, Aug 16 2019, 3:22 PM
Things have been weird enough for mortgage rates recently that we were forced to add a " Temporary Note on Mortgage Rate Inconsistency " to our daily ...
Fri, Aug 16 2019, 11:28 AM
10yr yields rallied aggressively yesterday, and for no reason more compelling than a proverbial "snowball rally compounded by technicals and algorithm...
Fri, Aug 16 2019, 8:27 AM
Some international rates have gone through 0 percent and are now negative. The low rates and high volumes have caused lenders to focus less on long-te...
Thu, Aug 15 2019, 5:35 PM
Bonds digested the week's busiest day of economic data, by far, today. But markets in general are only interested in data that changes the economic n...
Thu, Aug 15 2019, 5:18 PM
Mortgage rates fell today as the underlying market for mortgage-backed-securities (MBS) actually did a better job of keeping pace with broader bond ma...
Thu, Aug 15 2019, 8:51 AM
Plenty of economists watch builder activity and mood swings as early indicators of future economic health. Builder confidence in the single-family 55+...
Thu, Aug 15 2019, 8:37 AM
In the day just passed, bond markets primarily reacted to overseas economic data with many of the reports in Europe coming in flat to weaker. Combine...
Thu, Aug 15 2019, 8:10 AM
The long-waited Federal Housing Administration (FHA) rule regulating condominium lending was finalized Wednesday afternoon. The Department of Housing ...
Wed, Aug 14 2019, 7:00 PM
Living under a rock has a lot of advantages: generally low housing cost, durability, no roof maintenance, and if you're strong enough, you have someth...
Wed, Aug 14 2019, 6:31 PM
Mortgage rates were unchanged for many lenders today which is utterly and completely shocking given the other market developments that tend to coincid...
Wed, Aug 14 2019, 10:50 AM
In the day just passed, bonds sold off by a completely average amount in the context of recent volatility and new trading range. Motivations were abo...
Wed, Aug 14 2019, 8:58 AM
Data compiled by the American Bar Association shows that average lawyer pay has nearly doubled since 1997! Mortgage loan originators enjoy comparing t...
Wed, Aug 14 2019, 8:09 AM
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage application volume, rose 21.7 percent on a seasonally ad...
Tue, Aug 13 2019, 6:07 PM
Bonds began the day in relatively unchanged territory versus yesterday's close and soon encountered the slightly stronger CPI data (2.2 vs 2.1% for CO...
Tue, Aug 13 2019, 5:13 PM
Mortgage rates were still unchanged for many lenders as of this morning. There were even a few offering slightly lower rates compared to yesterday mor...
Tue, Aug 13 2019, 11:32 AM
Both the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and CoreLogic issued data on recent loan performance on Tuesday. For CoreLogic the Monthly Loan Performanc...
Tue, Aug 13 2019, 9:22 AM
As we digest the news that CIT is buying Mutual of Omaha Bank , others are looking at demographics. Families moving create jobs, right? From 2017 to 2...
Tue, Aug 13 2019, 8:35 AM
In the day just passed, bonds put in their second biggest rally day of the past 3 weeks (the crazy ones) and their biggest rally day since yields bott...
Mon, Aug 12 2019, 6:00 PM
There were no significant scheduled events in the offing today. Volumes were down sharply in the bond complex as well (less than 50% of recent highs)...
Mon, Aug 12 2019, 3:24 PM
Mortgage rates were unchanged to slightly higher today--a claim that utterly boggles the mind of anyone who thought they understood the relationship b...
Mon, Aug 12 2019, 3:22 PM
After years of planning, the two government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac launched their uniform mortgage-backed security (U...
Mon, Aug 12 2019, 9:30 AM
In the week just passed, bonds began to settle into a range after the sharp move lower in the previous week (driven by flaring trade tensions). This ...
Mon, Aug 12 2019, 9:19 AM
While the world is watching 0% or-.5% interest rates in Denmark , in this country Zillow is competing with lenders, real estate agents, and mom & pop ...
Fri, Aug 9 2019, 4:53 PM
I wouldn't go so far as to say this week of bond market movement went "out like a lamb," but at the very least, it wasn't nearly as brutal as the firs...
Fri, Aug 9 2019, 4:15 PM
Mortgage rates moved lower today even though the broader bond market suggested they should have remained flat or higher. In several of this week's pre...
Fri, Aug 9 2019, 12:48 PM
It's too late in the morning at this point to refer to this post as a "Day Ahead," so let's change course a bit and simply address the biggest burning...
Fri, Aug 9 2019, 10:16 AM
Ever since mortgage rates began to move lower, Black Knight has devoted a big portion of its Mortgage Monitor , a monthly report on loan performance a...
Fri, Aug 9 2019, 9:20 AM
Critics of the “new and improved” 1003, aka URLA, for loan applications must be quite pleased with the indefinite delay of its required rollout announ...
Fri, Aug 9 2019, 8:14 AM
The availability of jumbo mortgage loans increased in July, but not enough to offset tightening in credit access for other types of loans. The Mortgag...
Thu, Aug 8 2019, 5:12 PM
For some reason, yesterday's recap didn't go out. You didn't miss much. I wrote a bit about how I roll out of my high tech cryo-stasis chamber each ...
Thu, Aug 8 2019, 4:22 PM
Mortgage rates were sharply higher today, with the average 30yr fixed rate quote rising by almost an eighth of a percentage point in some cases. A mov...
Thu, Aug 8 2019, 10:33 AM
In the day just passed, bonds endured whipsaw volatility of the highest and most frustrating order. Overnight gains were swift and largely defied any...
Thu, Aug 8 2019, 9:06 AM
Are there “non-profit” lenders and/or real estate companies in the private sector? (I’m talking business model, not tax status.) Sure there are. Here’...
Thu, Aug 8 2019, 8:28 AM
There was an unusually large bump in Fannie Mae's Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) in July. The company said strong positive responses to question...
Thu, Aug 8 2019, 8:19 AM
Anyone trying to make sense out of current data on the direction of home prices needs more than a calculator. Every new report seems to dump more mud ...
